CHAPTER XXVIII
"SOMETHING HAD HAPPENED"
But Ruth Burnham went to her room that night in a tumult of pain and self-reproach keener than she had felt for years.
As plainly as though a book had been opened before her, and a solemn unseen figure had pointed to the page, she read the story of her failure.
She had tried to be good to this woman, she had been outwardly patient with her faults, she had been long suffering, she had been silent over wrongs—she had effaced herself in a thousand ways, but she had been as cold as ice. There had been nothing in her face or voice to invite the confidence of this younger, weaker woman. There had been nothing in her daily attitude toward her to suggest the love and sympathy of Christ.
She cried to Him for forgiveness, for the privilege of beginning again, for wisdom to know just how to do it. And then she prayed for Irene in a way that, with all her trying, she had not been able to do before.
It came to her while on her knees that she would tell Irene of Maybelle's beautiful faith and daily praying for her mother, without knowing that it was her mother.
Were the child's prayers being answered? Was this strange new mood of Irene's part of the answer?